As we approach our one-year anniversary Squaring the Strange, the podcast I co-host with Pascual Romero and Celestia Ward, I wanted to review early episodes you may have missed!
Episode 9: Until the Light Takes Us
On the skeptic radar this week, Ben brings us a disturbing story about foreigners allegedly abducting girls in South Africa. No abductions actually took place, but the power of parental fears coupled with xenophobia and rumors on social media resulted in looting and vandalism. Then, after a pedantic discussion on illegible band logos, Ben and Pascual dive into Until the Light Takes Us, a documentary about Norwegiean black metal during the early 1990s. As the Satanic Panic took hold in the US, in Norway the overtly anti-Christian metal scene was propelled to international news as leader of the “black circle” Varg Vikernes was convicted for arson and murder after several churches were burned down. The media was quick to affix Satanism as a motive, though Vikernes himself said he burned the churches down for Odin, which was in line with the stated pagan beliefs of those in the movement. In Norway, as in America, things not connected to Satanism were quickly branded as such for consumption by the masses and to fit with the current moral panic. Pascual shares some insider insight on the Satanic Panic—including how some bands capitalized on it and how some young fans flocked to the shock effect it offered.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

Halloween is here, and amid the make-believe witches, ghouls, and goblins, there are supposedly real-life villains who hope to harm on children October 31. News reports and scary stories on social media leave many parents concerned about protecting children from Halloween threats.
But are they real or myth? Here are five scary myths and legends about the spookiest holiday!
1) Halloween is Satanic
While many people see Halloween as scary and harmless fun some people, including many fundamentalist Christians, believe that there is sinister side to the holiday. They believe that underneath the fantasy costumes and candy-dispensing traditions there lies an unseen spiritual struggle for the souls of the innocent.
Christian evangelist Phil Phillips and Joan Hake Robie, in their book "Halloween and Satanism," explain that the seemingly harmless costumes (such as witches, zombies and vampires) put children's spiritual lives at risk by interesting them in supernatural occult phenomena—and, ultimately, on the road to Satanic practices. Of course it's not just Halloween that these groups are concerned about—they have in the past protested against role-playing games, heavy-metal music, and even Harry Potter books.
Historically, however, there is little or no actual connection between Satanism and Halloween; for one thing the early pagan traditions that many scholars believe became part of what we now call Halloween had no concept of Devil. The idea of a Christian Satan developed much later, and therefore Halloween could not have been rooted in Satanism.
2) Beware Tainted Halloween Candy
The most familiar Halloween scares involve contaminated candy, and every year, police and medical centers across the country X-ray candy collected by trick-or-treaters to check for razors, needles, or contaminants that might have been placed there by strangers intending to hurt or kill children. Scary news reports and warnings on social media claimed that dangerous candy had been found, raising fears among parents and children. Many medical centers across the country, including in Harrisburg, Penn., are offering free X-raying of candy this Halloween.
This threat is essentially an urban legend. There have been only two confirmed cases of children being killed by poisoned Halloween candy, and in both cases the children were killed not in a random act by strangers but intentional murder by one of their parents. The best-known, "original" case was that of Texan Ronald Clark O'Bryan, who killed his son by lacing his Pixie Stix with cyanide in 1974. In essence he used this myth to try to cover his crime.
Yet the fear continues. There have been a few instances of candy tampering over the years—and in most cases the "victim" turned out to be the culprit, children doing it as a prank or to draw attention. Last year there were a few news reports about suspected tainted candy, and police determined that the incidents were hoaxes. In Philadelphia an 11-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy in who reported finding needles in their trick-or-treat candy admitted they made up the story for attention, and a 37-year-old father claimed to have found tainted candy in his kids' loot; he later admitted it was a hoax and claimed that he put the needles in the candy to teach his kids a lesson about safety.
Fortunately, parents can rest easy: Despite the ubiquitous warnings on social media, there have been no confirmed reports of anyone actually being injured or harmed by contaminated Halloween candy from strangers.
3) Beware Halloween Terrorists
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, rumors circulated that mysterious Middle Eastern men were buying up huge quantities of candies just before Halloween. Many people were concerned that this might be part of a terrorist plot to attack America's children, and the FBI looked into the case.
Prompted by the public concern over potential terrorism, the FBI acknowledged that it was investigating the cash purchase of 'large quantities' of candy from Costco stores in New Jersey. A week before Halloween, on October 22, the FBI cleared up the rumors. It was one man, not two, who had bought $15,000 worth of candy, not $35,000. The man's nationality was not revealed, so he may or may not have been Arab or dark-skinned or even had an ethnic name. As it turned out the man was a wholesaler who planned to resell the candy, and the purchase was a routine transaction that had nothing to do with terrorism.
4) Beware Sex Offenders on Halloween
Though the fears over poisoned candy (whether by malicious neighbors or foreign terrorists) never materialized, the reputed Halloween evil took a new form in the 1990s: sex offenders. This scare, even more than the candy panics, was fueled by alarmist news reports and police warnings. In many states, convicted sex offenders were required not to answer the door if trick-or-treaters came by, or to report to jail overnight. In many states including Texas and Arkansas offenders were required to report to courthouses on Halloween evening for a mandatory counseling sessions.
The theory behind such laws is that Halloween provides a special opportunity for sex offenders to make contact with children, or to use costumes to conceal their identities. This has been the assumption among many local politicians and police for years. Yet there is no reason to think that sex offenders pose any more of a threat to children on Halloween than at any other time. In fact, there has not been a single case of any child being molested by a convicted sex offender while trick-or-treating.
A 2009 study confirmed that the public has little to fear from sex offenders on Halloween. The research, published in the September 2009 issue of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, examined 67,307 non-family sex offenses reported to law enforcement in 30 states over nine years. The researchers wanted to determine whether or not children are in fact at any greater risk for sexual assault around Halloween: “There does not appear to be a need for alarm concerning sexual abuse on these particular days. Halloween appears to be just another autumn day where rates of sex crimes against children are concerned.”
5) Beware Scary Clowns
In the wake of the recent scary clown panics across the country, several national stores including Target have removed scary clown masks from their shelves, and both kids and parents are asking children to both beware of people in clown costumes and to not wear scary clown masks. Several counties banned scary clown costumes and masks last Halloween. As one writer noted, "A Kemper County, Mississippi's Board of Supervisors voted recently to make it unlawful to wear a clown costume in public. The ban covers all ages and includes costumes, masks or makeup. The ban – which will expire the day after Halloween – comes at the request of the county sheriff... It comes after a series of reports from around the country and Alabama that spooky-looking clowns were threatening children and schools. Some of those reports were later debunked and a few led to arrests with concerns over the creepy clown phenomenon growing as Halloween approaches."
Clown masks have also been banned from some New Jersey schools; as "USA Today" reported, "The West Milford Police Department has said there is no specific threat against the community. Still, there have been spotty and unsubstantiated reports on social media about people in scary clown masks lurking around township school yards in recent weeks." Fortunately so far there are no confirmed reports of children being seriously injured, abducted, or killed by anyone dressed in scary clown masks over the past few months. Most of the reports are hoaxes and copycats, usually by teenagers who have fun scaring people or seeing themselves on social media.
Halloween is scary enough on its own, between overpriced candy and sugar-sated kids.
The real threats to children don't involve tampered candy, Satanists, scary clowns, terrorists, or sex offenders; instead they include being hit by a car in the dark, or wearing a flammable costume, or injuring themselves while walking on curbs because they can't see out of their masks. Most kids are very safe at Halloween, and the average child is far more likely to die of a heart attack or be hit by lightning than be harmed in some Halloween-related menace.

A new show is out!
Episode 25: Conspiracy Theories THEY Don’t Want You to Know About (released September 28, 2017) Ben ruminates on the blowup over Trump’s NFL tweets this week, wondering why so many people (especially Trump’s critics) seem to give him more power by fueling the outrage machine, thus distracting themselves from the core issues. Owing to Trump’s clear track record of lies, exaggerations, contradictions, and impulse thoughts, perhaps the best skeptical approach is to not give his tweets any weight at all—as they do not represent legislative action, the views of most of America, or even, perhaps, Trump’s core values (if he has any). Then, for their main topic, the guys delve into conspiratorial thinking: from medieval witch hunts to the Illuminati. What factors make people more prone to fall into believing conspiracies, and what are some hallmarks of a typical conspiracy theory? Why do proponents doubt some things so strongly but swallow every point made in an amateur Youtube video? It’s also valuable to examine what exactly is taken as evidence—and if, for argument’s sake, that “evidence” is true: does it really prove the theory put forth or is it simply one small strange thing likely meaning nothing? Finally, we run through a quick history of disseminating information, from the rise of the printing press to modern day. Cranks with conspiracy notions have gone from buying back-of-magazine ads and Xeroxing pamphlets (and in one case cementing tiles down on East Coast streets) to putting up websites and starting podcasts—and, alarmingly, being interviewed by mainstream journalists and quoted by the President of the United States.
Squaring the Strange brings evidence-based analysis and commentary to a wide variety of topics, ranging from the paranormal to the political. Investigating ghosts. Debunking conspiracies. Dodging chupacabras. If a claim seems strange, Ben and Pascual will try to square it with the facts. Squaring the Strange is supported in part by the Center for Inquiry, a non-profit educational organization whose Mission Statement reads in part, “At the Center for Inquiry, we believe that evidence-based reasoning, in which humans work together to address common concerns, is critical for modern world civilization. Moreover, unlike many other institutions, we maintain that scientific methods and reasoning should be utilized in examining the claims of both pseudoscience and religion. We reject mysticism and blind faith. No topic should be placed off limits to scrutiny.”
Listen and subscribe HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

That time I explained why Obama could not be both Muslim AND the Antichrist: "According to Scripture, the Antichrist will try to deceive the public by claiming to work on God's behalf. He will be pretending to do God's work while instead furthering his own diabolical agenda. But President Obama has never implicitly nor explicitly claimed to God's work; his presidency has been fairly secular. George W. Bush, on the other hand, repeatedly invoked God and claimed that God wanted him to be president....
You can read it HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

Episode 18: Food Evolution Documentary and Chewing the Fat on GMOs
This week on Squaring the Strange, Celestia, Pascual, and I open with a discussion on what people consider uncanny, bizarre, or strange. What takes something from implausible to downright mysterious? An understanding of statistics is one angle to consider, but ignorance of particular fields is also at work: from the World Trade Center to the pyramids to cancer remissions, people who lack the relevant technical knowledge are the ones gobsmacked by particular events or facts. Headline writers emphasize this “bizarre” aspect without providing context, leading many to jump right to conspiracy theories or supernatural explanations.
Then Celestia, back from the 2017 meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists, discusses the new GMO documentary, Food Evolution. The film was funded by IFT but director Scott Hamilton Kennedy was given complete control over topic, content, and approach, and he chose to tackle the human side of the GMO/organic controversy. Kennedy did a beautiful job bringing the human element to the forefront and takes viewers along a persuasive narrative of finding common ground and changing minds. We touch on hot button topics like GMO labeling, evil corporations like Monsanto, and patenting living organisms. We also discuss the negative feedback the movie has so far received, and the strength (or rather lack of strength) in the arguments that the anti-GMO crowd has put forth. Namely, a Huffington Post columnist supported by organic industries decries the appearance of a logo in the film’s background, and Mike Adams calls Neil deGrasse Tyson a race traitor.
Lastly, we let you know how to check for a screening of Food Evolution in your area, and give shoutouts to some online resources for anyone wanting to learn more about GMO tech.
Listen to the show HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

The 1937 disappearance of pioneer pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan in the Pacific Ocean has been the subject of continuing research, debate, and speculation—most recently in a show titled Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence.
I wrote an in-depth analysis of the show; here's an excerpt:
If the photo is what it’s claimed to be, it means that the “lost” pair were alive and well on a dock in the Marshall Islands in 1937. That still doesn’t fully explain where they went after the photo was taken, and as noted the show suggests they were captured by the Japanese and died in prison on Saipan—a fact that the U.S. government knew about and covered up.
To be clear, this idea is not new and is only one of many theories put forth over the years—and widely rejected for lack of evidence. While Earhart’s precise fate remains unknown, the most widely accepted explanation is also the most mundane: they ran out of fuel and their plane crashed into the vast Pacific Ocean. In an effort to breathe life (and ratings) into a theory heavy on speculation but light on evidence, the History Channel offered what they claimed was something akin to a smoking gun: a blurry photograph of what might or might not be Earhart and Noonan.
Doubts were raised about that explanation before the show aired and quickly escalated afterward. As National Geographic explained, “New evidence indicates that the photograph was published in a 1935 Japanese-language travelogue about the islands of the South Pacific. As Japanese military history blogger Kota Yamano noted in a July 9 post, he found the book after searching the National Diet Library, Japan’s national library, using the term ‘Jaluit Atoll,’ the location featured in the photograph.”
Instead of being hidden in a secret archive deep in the guarded National Security vaults, the image popped up on the first page of search results: “His search query turned up the travelogue, The Ocean's ‘Lifeline’: The Condition of Our South Seas, which features the ‘Earhart’ photograph on page 44. One translation of the caption describes a lively port that regularly hosted schooner races—with no mention of Earhart or Noonan to be found. Page 113 of the book indicates that the travelogue was published in October 1935.”
This of course poses a problem because the photo was published two years before Earhart’s final flight. It’s almost certainly not Earhart but even if it was, it has nothing to do with her disappearance. Displaying keen investigative acumen, Yamano said in an interview “I find it strange that the documentary makers didn’t confirm the date of the photograph or the publication in which it originally appeared. That’s the first thing they should have done.”
To be fair, the entire show does not stand or fall on the photograph’s authenticity. The show’s producers likely knew that the photo itself might not be entirely convincing and suggested that there was hard forensic evidence to support the theory: bones found on the island where Earhart supposedly died were to be subjected to genetic testing and compared to Earhart’s known relatives to prove she was on the island. As Eve Siebert noted on the July 12 episode of The Virtual Skeptics podcast, “I’m assuming that this did not actually happen because if they were able to identify bones buried on Saipan identified as Earhart’s, they really buried the lede by focusing on that blurry photograph.”
The History Channel promised viewers in a July 9 tweet that “After tonight, the story of Amelia Earhart will no longer have a question mark.” This prediction turned out to be prophetic; indeed, the single question mark has since been replaced by dozens of question marks—ranging from the integrity of the History Channel to the competence of its on-air researchers. (If it’s any consolation, the recent show almost certainly supplants a 2012 show that Skeptoid’s Brian Dunning called “one of the worst examples of television promoting pseudohistory.”)
You can read the rest HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

My overview article on crop circles is now up at LiveScience.com, check it out!

Crop circles — strange patterns that appear mysteriously overnight in farmers' fields—provoke puzzlement, delight and intrigue among the press and public alike. The circles are mostly found in the United Kingdom, but have spread to dozens of countries around the world in past decades. The mystery has inspired countless books, blogs, fan groups, researchers (dubbed "cereologists") and even Hollywood films.
Despite having been studied for decades, the question remains: Who — or what — is making them?
Find out HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

I'm quoted in "The Christian Post" about an article I wrote on the "Blue Whale Game" suicide rumor/urban legend/moral panic...
You can read it HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

In my new CFI blog I examine the recent interview of conspiracist Alex Jones by NBC's Megan Kelly...
Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is doing her best to establish herself as a hard-nosed journalist in recent interviews with Russian president Vladimir Putin and conspiracy peddler Alex Jones. Both shows were breathlessly hyped, and while Putin has spent decades conducting disinformation campaigns (and continues to do so; see my CSI Special Report “How Russian Conspiracies Taint Social Activist ‘News’”), the interview with Jones was the more controversial. This was due in part to Jones’s promotion of the conspiracy that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax.
The question of whether or not Kelly should have given Jones more of a platform for his blinkered views (or any legitimacy) is a fair one—and one she anticipated. In the program Kelly defended her decision at least partly on the grounds that Jones has some influence over the President of the United States. As I’ve noted in Skeptical Inquirer magazine and elsewhere (and in a PBS NewsHour segment), no modern politician has so successfully and routinely employed conspiracy theories as Donald Trump. Trump enjoys flirting with fringe and extremist elements including conspiracy theorists, and has appeared on Jones’s program. This is a legitimate concern, and Alex Jones, as the source of many of those conspiracies, is by extension useful to understand.
That being said, the Kelly interview generated more heat than light (or ratings, as I’ll touch on). I watched the first ten minutes of the interview—it was about as much as I could stomach—and it was exactly what I expected. Jones blustered and bluffed his way through the interview, blithely brushing aside self-evident contradictions and routinely resorting to the familiar tactic of “I’m not saying any of this is true... I’m just asking questions!” What, if anything, Jones really believes remains an uninteresting mystery and it’s unlikely the program changed any minds.
You can find the rest HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

Hey folks! I'm a guest, along with my buddies Seth Shostak, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, on the recent episode of "StarTalk Radio," talking about UFOs and alien life. Check it out HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

I was interviewed last year for an article on government mind control conspiracies.
Or was I?
Find out HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!

My recent interview on NPR about UFOs and aliens, opposite Leslie Kean, George Noory, and others, is now out. It's not a bad show, but if you want to hear some skepticism, start about 40 minutes in... you can listen HERE.
From the Colin McEnroe show:
UFOs have been reported in America since the 1600s. And in all that time our government has largely dismissed the objects as being of Earthly origin. But this culture of dismissal in the U.S. is not indicative of how sightings are handled around the world. Some foreign governments readily discuss the possibility of extraterrestrials having visited Earth, and others go so far as to openly support the possibility.
As reports of UFO sightings in America have skyrocketed since the 1940's, we ask why the phenomenon isn't given a more serious look. We'll examine some of the most compelling cases of all time and ask what it is about these unidentified objects that captivates the imaginations of so many. This hour we speak with believers and skeptics about UFO's.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

While there are many factors in Trump’s rise, one of the most bizarre is his use of conspiracies. Whether the topic is voter fraud, Obama wiretapping Trump Towers, or anti-vaccination arguments, no modern politician has so successfully and routinely employed conspiracy theories as Donald Trump.

Political conspiracies, both real (Watergate) and dubious (G.W. Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks) are nothing new. In the 16th and 17th centuries, for example, during outbreaks of the bubonic plague, dozens of people in what is now Switzerland and Italy were arrested and accused of intentionally spreading the disease as part of a plot to steal from sickened, wealthy landowners.

But Trump’s endorsement of conspiracies is unprecedented in American politics. Trump enjoys flirting with fringe and extremist elements including conspiracy theorists. Trump has also appeared on the radio show of noted conspiracy advocate Alex Jones, who has repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration has faked or staged domestic shootings (including the Sandy Hook school massacre) as a pretext for confiscating American’s guns.

In case you missed it, I was recently a guest on the StarTalk Radio Show, talking about aliens, UFOs, and much more. You can listen to it HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

My buddy Ian Harris has a new blog about chemtrails:
I was driving on the freeway in Los Angeles, and the car in front of me had a bumper sticker on it that said “Chemtrails Kill.” Now, I love to laugh at the chemtrail people anyway, but this one had me almost pulling over to catch a breath, because the vehicle was not actually a car but a giant, Suburban-type SUV. The irony of this one is just way too thick to ignore. You are driving around in an eighteen-passenger, four-gallon-to-the-mile, urban assault vehicle on a road with a million other cars, worried about condensation happening at thirty-five thousand feet! Watch out: water vapor at one part per zillion is falling all around us! And let’s not pretend that “Chemtrails” are anything but that—water vapor accurately known as contrails. Contrails have existed since the invention of the jet engine. We know definitively what causes them. There is less secret involved here than why your windshield has that “mysterious” water on it every morning. We know more about the formation of contrails than we do about where that one sock goes when we do the laundry. The science behind contrails is more understood than the science behind what makes those One Direction kids so damn adorable.
You can read the rest HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

In case you missed my recent appearance on the "Big Picture Science" show talking about aliens and UFOs, it's HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

I'm quoted in a recent piece on The Daily Beast, talking about government (sorry, gubmint) mind control conspiracies. You can read it HERE!

“They’re looking for shielding materials, garments, fabrics, metals, paints, and meters for measuring, but oftentimes they can’t really articulate what they’re trying to shield from or trying to measure,” said DeToffol.

That’s because none of what these people are trying to protect against actually exists, says Benjamin Radford, a fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a New York think tank that promotes science-based reasoning. Further, this sort of “thought broadcasting”—which is known among conspiracy theorists as “Remote Neural Monitoring,” or “RNM”—is a classicmanifestation of paranoid schizophrenia, says Dr. Michael Sacks, an attending psychiatrist at NewYork Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

News stories last week have challenged the conventional wisdom dispensed by dentists for decades: that flossing your teeth regularly helps prevent tooth decay and gum disease. But that's not quite accurate. My article explaining why is HERE!
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My recent article for Seeker (formerly Discovery News) is about the politics of vaccinations...
In medicine the benefits of childhood vaccination are widely accepted. The evidence is clear and overwhelming: vaccines do not cause autism (or any other condition), and the benefits of preventing severe diseases far outweigh the small risks of side effects. This is non-controversial, and vaccination is a staple of preventive medicine worldwide.
You can read the rest HERE.
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I'm quoted in The Santa Fe New Mexican talking about the lure and lore of hidden treasure, you can read it HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

My recent article on Shakespeare's skull (and grave robbing for fun and profit) on Discovery News can be seen HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

A new study finds that over half of the measles cases in the U.S. since 2000 were among unvaccinated people--and most of those were offered the vaccine but refused it. My new article on the topic is HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

Recently a class at a middle school in Connecticut asked me for an interview about the Bermuda Triangle. I agreed to a short (15 minute) Skype session where I'd answer questions for the class, and it had a twist ending. You can read about it HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

Last month a sensational "news story" about supposedly mysterious, alien "music" heard on the dark side of the moon on the Apollo 10 mission has gone viral. HERE is the real explanation that cuts through the myths and mystery mongering...
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

Donald Trump is unique in the history of American politics in his repeated and successful endorsement of wild conspiracy theories. My new article explains why and how it works for him... you can read it HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

For those who didn't see it, I'm quoted in a new PBS piece on conspiracy theories: "Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine, said many conspiratorial beliefs have a 'grain of truth' to them, such as when the high-profile revelations from Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed that the government lied to the public. 'There’s this illicit transference of belief where people assume just because the government is capable of doing bad things and being careless,' Radford said. It provides a 'sheen of plausibility' that leads people to assume officials take things another step too far."
You can read it HERE!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

A while ago I recorded a few short (90-second) segments for an NPR station on the chemtrail conspiracy. Four of them are now on YouTube; you can see them HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

Late last year I recorded about a dozen short (1-2 minute) segments for a NPR station on various skeptical subjects. Here are five of the audio segments now available on YouTube, on the subject of the chupacabra. You can find them HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

Late last year I recorded about a dozen short (1-2 minute) segments for a NPR station on various skeptical subjects. Here are four of the audio segments now available on YouTube, on the subject of Chemtrail Conspiracies. You can find them HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

A recent study published in the “American Journal of Public Health” examined the demographics of California school students who had requested and received exemptions from mandatory vaccinations for nonmedical reasons. My recent article for Discovery News examines why many anti-vaccination parents are better educated than those who endorse vaccines. You can read it HERE.
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A British mother is claiming that her troubled teen killed herself because of an allergy to WiFi; my analysis for Discovery News is HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

Last month a bizarre photo circulated apparently depicting a flying city in the clouds. Explanations ranged from mirage to hoax to conspiracy operations; my take on it for Discovery News is HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

I and three other experts including Susan Gerbic are extensively quoted in a new story about internet hoaxes: "In today’s fast-paced news culture, misinformation and disinformation are spread with a click, often before authenticity and credibility are verified. Sometimes it's harmless and funny, like The Onion fooling Fox News. But in other cases, this type of behavior is not only irresponsible but also incredibly dangerous. To understand this culture of deception, Hopes&Fears gathered four experts on hoaxes, falsehoods, rumors and pseudoscience..." You can read it HERE.

From the Radford Files archives:
A recent poll by Harris interactive found that 14 percent of Americans suspect that President Barack Obama may be the Antichrist. Nearly a quarter of Republicans, and 16 percent of Democrats, responded this way. Forty percent said they think Obama is a Socialist, and just under one-third believe he is Muslim.
If the statistics are valid, the number of people who believe that Obama is the Antichrist is alarming. For many people—especially religious fundamentalists— "the Antichrist" is not a metaphor. It's not meant as a joke or hyperbole. They really, literally mean they believe that the President of the United States may either be evil incarnate (Satan), or the entity who fulfills Biblical prophecy as the adversary of Jesus Christ.
Yet a close reading of the Bible reveals an interesting discrepancy: According to Scripture, the Antichrist will try to deceive the public by claiming to work on God's behalf. He will be a so-called wolf in sheep's clothing, a duplicitious man of God pretending to do God's work while instead furthering his own diabolical agenda.
President Obama has never implicitly nor explicitly claimed to God's work. Though he has invoked God and religion on occasion, his presidency has been fairly secular. (Those people who believe that Obama is both a Muslim and the Antichrist have some mighty confused and contradictory theology.)
George W. Bush, on the other hand, repeatedly invoked God during his presidency. He was quoted in The Faith of George W. Bush as saying "I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for President." Bush also said, "The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. This confrontation is willed by God who wants this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a new age begins," and that "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."
Of course George W. Bush is no more the Antichrist than Barack Obama is. Yet if what the Bible says about the Antichrist is true, Bush is a far more likely candidate than Obama. For the majority of Americans who are pretty sure that President Obama is neither a Muslim nor the Antichrist, it's easy to mock such outlandish beliefs. But beliefs have consequences; in early April, nine self-proclaimed paramilitary "Christian warriors" were arrested in Michigan. They had been preparing for a battle with the government—and, ultimately, perhaps the Antichrist.
This piece originally appeared in the Briefs Briefs column in the June 2010 Skeptical Briefs newsletter.
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With the news last month about the discovery of a “super-Stonehenge” circling one of the world’s most famous monuments, attention has once again focused on the Wiltshire marvel. There are thousands of ancient stone circles across Europe, of which Stonehenge is by far the best known and most impressive. While there are many genuine historical mysteries about Stonehenge — such as who built it and for what purpose — there are just as many fabricated ones trading in myth and conspiracy. You can read my Discovery News piece HERE.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Over the years I've written about dozens and dozens of conspiracy theories, including the Obama birthers, the Sandy Hook shootings (for which I still receive hate e-mails), Osama bin Laden death conspiracies, claims that vaccines are attempts to poison children, 9/11 truthers, the EPA spill in the Animas river, and countless others. I'm fascinated by the psychology of conspiracy thinking, why some conspiracies gain traction while other fade away, and more. One curious and often-overlooked element of conspiracy thinking is that conspiracy theorists are for the most part completely uninterested in actual, provable conspiracies, such as the GM coverups. You can read more at my CFI blog.
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.

I was recently a guest on the 16Miles2Hell show, talking about conspiracy theories, the history of conspiracy dissemination, and the psychology of conspiracies... Put on your tinfoil hat and check it out!
You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo.